Constitutional Justice Plank

General Preamble

We are dedicated to ensuring that our criminal justice system provides fair and equitable treatment for all. We believe in and fully support the human and civil rights of all persons. We are determined to put an end to family violence, gang activity, and criminal activity related to substance abuse. We also want to address the root causes of crime such as substance abuse, unemployment, poverty and racism. We must be “smart on crime”, not merely “hard on crime”. Strong families and safe communities are the highest goals of our society. Crime prevention, rehabilitation and appropriate punishment are essential to our families, our communities, and our state’s budget.

Statement of Principles

EducationSince more education leads to less crime we support increasing high school graduation rates. We will use evidence-based methods that include structured pre-school for all, anti-truancy measures, and after-school programs.To this end we support the following goals and policies, Ventura County Democrats will:

Support measures that will improve educational and community programs as part of crime prevention, such as after-school programs that have enough time coverage to accommodate working parents;

Support programs to reduce the inequity between public school funding and prison expansion in California, and support efforts to address high school dropout rates;

Collaborate with the school systems and youth organizations and other groups to help at-risk children to stay out of gangs and to help convicted gang members to re-integrate; and

Support parent participation in their children’s education by having access to information in their native language.

Community RelationsWe recognize that healthy and safe communities depend on trust in and positive interaction with law enforcement agencies.We support:

Implementation of community-based policing by educating law enforcement personnel in community relations and we encourage dialog in order to break down barriers between law enforcement personnel and the communities they serve;

Support encouraging law enforcement personnel to speak to the communities in their native language.

Enhancement of victim-witness advocacy that respects the rights of crime victims and provides them with assistance and reasonable financial compensation, and support comprehensive services for the victims of crime;

Government services and non-profit organizations should be designed to help communities into which parolees are returning and the parolees to reintegrate as law abiding members of the community to prevent them from returning to a life of crime.

Implementation of citizen oversight boards to work with, not against, public safety agencies to help balance the community’s need for security and individual rights for liberty;

Increase consumer protections against identity theft and violations of privacy.

Law EnforcementWe recognize that the costs of law enforcement agencies providing for the community peace and security are worth every tax dollar spent. We recognize that public safety is a combination of government services, including but not limited to police, fire, juvenile, probation, detention/jail, district attorney, and public defender services that provide for the security of the community. We recognize that additional governmental and non-governmental services also support security of the community, including but not limited to public schools, public hospitals, public mental health, community non-profits, and religious services. We support all measures that will strengthen the effectiveness of our law enforcement and community service agencies, and will:To this end we support the following goals and policies, Ventura County Democrats will:

Provide reasonable compensation and retirement, and disability protection to government public safety employees;

Maintain and protect collective bargaining, unions, and union political activity for government public safety employees;

Provide state-of-the-art equipment and training in the latest crime-fighting techniques;

Ensure that DNA testing is available so that guilty people are not set free and that innocent people are not wrongly convicted;

Strictly enforce fair penalties for all violent crimes, especially those committed against women, children, the elderly and disabled;

Strictly enforce civil rights protections for all members of the community including those who serve the community in public safety;

Assure the correct use of administrative laws so that persons whose property has been taken, such as vehicle impoundment, are afforded due process to recover their property;

Reform the juvenile justice system to encourage effective rehabilitation over incarceration where appropriate;

Improve methods for prosecution of white-collar criminals and recovery of financial losses; and

Immigration laws should be enforced by Federal authorities. Efforts to enforce immigration laws by city, county and state police personnel including reporting potential immigration infractions to federal authorities impair/impede the reporting of criminal activities to the proper authorities.

Further, we support the civil and property rights of all our peoples and oppose:

The practice of profiling based on race, from detainment through charging and sentencing;

Measures that curtail minority voting rights and and/or deny a minority political and economic power;

The privatization of prisons and the justice system as these give financial incentive to placing more citizens in prison for non-violent offenses.

GunsWe as Democrats support all measures that will:

Promote responsible gun ownership by working with gun owners, sellers, government agencies and sporting associations to promote safety education;

Implement gun licensing legislation to keep guns out of the hands of criminals;and the severely mentally ill;

Implement stricter controls of illegal guns from entering the state at the borders and via mail-order shipments;

Support the enforcement of reasonable licensing and training requirements for members of the community that carry weapons in private occupational fields such as, but not limited to armed security, or armed private investigator;

Support a reasonable “concealed weapon permit” process, which must include training requirements for members of the community who apply for concealed weapons permits; and

Support efforts to prevent battlefield weapons from being used on American streets.

CourtsRecognizing the important role of courts in creating and maintaining the confidence of our community in the criminal justice system, we call on the President and the Senate to:

Appoint and affirm the numerous vacancies in the Federal Courts of the United States, in order to improve the proper administration of justice.

Further, we as Democrats support all measures that will:

Ensure appropriate and necessary funding levels in order to assure that the courts systems have the resources, infrastructure and support staff to fulfill their responsibilities to judiciously manage the flow of criminal and civil trials;

Support the establishment of a non-partisan sentencing commission to review inequitable sentencing laws and mandatory minimums;

Protect the Constitutional right to a fair trial by enhanced funding for offices of the Public Defender and Public Defender resources;

Support the repeal of inequitable sentencing laws, such as the “Three Strikes”/Proposition 184 law to provide judges with more sentencing discretion, eliminate non-violent crimes from the application of this law, and make the change apply retroactively; and

Replace the death penalty with a term of permanent incarceration, which will serve to protect the public, provide swift and certain justice for victims’ families, reduce the disparity of applying the death sentence, and prevent putting to death someone who may later be determined to be innocent.

Prison SystemRecognizing that our prison system is overcrowded and has been criticized for a number of failures, including by the Supreme Court of the United States,We are determined to:

Work closely with all State and County agencies and departments to track and manage the funding and implementation of California Assembly Bill 109 to realign the prison system from State incarceration and post-release supervision of non-violent felony offenders to incarceration and post supervision release by the local counties;

Support rehabilitation, education and job readiness as top priorities within our state prison system;

To work closely with the Sheriff’s department and Probation officers to ensure that in-custody and post-custody education, counseling, job training, as well as mental and physical health programs are in place and sufficient to manage current and future incarceration and rehabilitation requirements;

Oppose and reduce prison overcrowding and the drain on our economy by decreasing penalties for minor drug offenses and other so-called victimless crimes;

Oppose sentencing juveniles to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (LWOP);

Promote prison reform policies so that no person incarcerated in any jail, prison, or other places of criminal detention and within the jurisdiction of any level of government, state, local or federal, shall suffer physical violence inflicted by other inmates or by guards, other than what the latter must do to subdue someone they are legally entitled to subdue;

Support the rights of prisoners to communicate by letter to family, ministers, prospective employers and rehabilitation counselors; and